that the County Court Judges should not be entrusted with these duties is to me astonishing. But I wish further to point out under this Act that if the husband commits adultery, the wife has no protection whatsoever. The justices have no power to inquire into it. The husband may commit adultery, and what is the poor wife to do? He may continue to commit adultery, and then, in disgust and horror at the position in which she is placed, she may say, 'I will go away,' and she goes away. The Court has no power to give her alimony; she cannot take her children away with her; there is no power of the Court to order that she shall be allowed to take them. When she is pining for her children after a time all she can do is to go to the Chancery Division of the High Court and under the Infant Custody Act to ask for her children to be given her. Of course, it is impossible for her to do that, as she has not the means to do anything of the sort. So it seems to me the law, as far as the poor are concerned, is in a painful and disgraceful condition."

And so it is likely to remain until there exists a business department charged with the duty of carrying out the reforms that have been considered and reported upon by the Divorce Commission. It may be thought that if these legal reforms were really pressing there would be an almost unanimous demand for them from lawyers themselves, but the history of legal reform goes to show that until the general body of citizens began to take interest in these matters a lawyer who preached reforms has always been a voice crying in the wilderness.

The Bar and the Law Society, speaking as trade unions

on behalf of their members, seldom manage to impress the public mind with the idea that they are capable of taking broad public views of the administration of the law as a social service, but rather seem to take pleasure in holding out the professions as institutions made for the sustenance and enrichment of their members. They regard Law Ministers, Land Registries, Abolition of Assizes, establishment of District Courts, local divorce, and any proposed reforms that are brought before them merely from the point of view of existing shop rules. The lawyer trade unionist is a short-witted die-hard. All change is distasteful to him. Nothing could have been more unfortunate than the discussions of the Bar and the Law Society on the eve of the introduction of women into the professions. Much of the work of a lawyer, and especially of a solicitor, is peculiarly adapted to women, and after the success of women in the more difficult field of medicine one might have hoped that the leading trade unionists among the lawyers would have had sufficient sense to remember the mistakes and defeat of the doctors and not to have led their members into an undignified contest with only one possible end to it. The matter being a public question and the public considering it an urgent one, the die-hards were swept into obscurity and the reform was made.

And in course of time these reforms which I have outlined will seize the imagination and interest of the public, and those of them that are sound and necessary will be brought about. Greatly as I esteem the members of both branches of the profession in their individual capacity, I have very little use for their collective verdicts

on social subjects. On these matters I look to the example of lawyers like Lord Brougham and Lord Bramwell and Lord Birkenhead, who have been clear-sighted enough to realize the evils of the systems by which they were immediately surrounded and have had sufficient of the poet in them to see clear visions of a better future. They have been always " ready and willing"-to use the cant phrase of the pleader-to inquire into existing defects of the Law and to propose measures of reform. True to their trade union in all matters of fellowship and domestic discipline, they have regarded the profession of the Law as a sacred trust in which the lawyer has a public duty forbidding him to consider matters of personal welfare when the wider interests of fellow-citizens are at stake.

Chapter X Concerning the Future

of Portia

Y Dear Portia,

M

It is flattering of you-and flattery has its uses at the Bar before some tribunals-it is flattering, I say, that you should ask an old Dogberry like myself, who has probably listened to more unskilful advocacy than anyone living, for some practical hints on your future prospects. You tell me that you want to become a legal "best seller," and I do not see why you should not succeed in your ambitions. Someone does, and it is always cheering to remember that the "best seller" is not necessarily the highest form of literature.

Your intention of going into Parliament and becoming a judge, though not a new one, is according to precedent, and in your chosen profession deference to precedent is considered a virtue. At the same time, a barrister who becomes a member of Parliament does not always attain to a judgeship, though the rate of exchange between a safe seat in Parliament and a seat on the bench of the High Court is often quoted in the lobby by political experts and allowed for in the odds by the bookmakers of the robing room.

But do not, I pray you, dabble too determinedly,

whilst you are a student, in the politics of the moment. It is scarce safe to attach oneself at an early age to any particular side or special patron. It does not look well in the public eye to chop and change your political principles too frequently, and it is impossible to foresee which side or which individual may have seisin of the demesne when in a few years you are ready to take the field.

you

I was glad to read in the papers that had passed in Roman Law and that so many of your fair companions had gained honours in the examinations. Do not be disheartened by the somewhat unchivalrous reminder of a writer in the law papers that "examination successes do not justify the confident expectations that women will secure corresponding triumphs in the forensic arena." The unknown legal warriors who write in law journals must be suffered gladly. They know perhaps what it is to pass in Roman Law with confident expectation of forensic triumphs and to be non-suited in the battle of life.

And it is well that you should understand that, though examinations must be passed, yet when they are passed they are best forgotten. The Art of Advocacy in which your namesake made such a distinct hit has very little to do with a study of the Pandects. Success in advocacy depends mainly on character. The Domus rightly expects that you should be a person of sound learning and religious education, since, as the great D'Aguesseau said, the order of advocates is "as noble as virtue." But the average solicitor will look for the more worldly attributes of judgment, courage, wit, and eloquence: and for my